


The Seasons of Skyrim

by FrayFray



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Ambience, Four Seasons, Holidays, Seasons, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28359507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrayFray/pseuds/FrayFray
Summary: The Skyrim Civil War is over and Edric Dragonborn rules over a peaceful and prosperous land. These are the Seasons of Skyrim.
Kudos: 4





	The Seasons of Skyrim

**Author's Note:**

> So, like a rational and grounded adult, I have an elaborate Elder Scrolls fanon involving generationally linked characters between Oblivion and Skyrim. This work features appearances by some of them.

In the winter, the snows fall thick and heavy on the hills of Whiterun. The pine forests are frosted white and the farmland surrounding the city walls sits barren and empty. Giant braziers lit on the battlements throw back the freezing night with their orange glow. In their hornet striped armour, guards stamp their feet and blow into their hands and dream of the mulled wine awaiting them in their barracks.  
In the taverns and homes of the Whiterun city, people gather to share food and make merry. Travelers from all over Skyrim have come to celebrate the Old and New Life Festivals, and for a week the city is full of light and laughter and song. A market has sprung up in the Plaza of Kynareth. The branches of the mighty Gildergreen are festooned with coloured lanterns, which throw motley shadows over the myriad stalls clustering beneath it.  
Dragonsreach, that great castle in the heights of the Cloud District, watches over the city lights. For the week leading up to the Festivals, the doors to the main hall sit open and inviting, welcoming guests to the sights and smells within. For the weary traveller or the beggar with no hearth to sit beside, the hall of King Edric welcomes all comers. The long tables are laden with roast meat, winter vegetables, fresh baked bread, sweet pastries and cakes, and wine and beer and mead in plenty to wash it all down. At the tables closer to the central hearth, the great and good of Skyrim rub shoulders. Under the jovial eye of their king, bonds of friendship are renewed with the sharing of bread, friendly rivalries are rekindled in rowdy drinking games, and toasts are drunk to the memories of loved ones that have gone to meet the gods.  
Above the hall, the enormous doors to the castle’s eponymous porch are open also. Curled like a giant cat in that magnificent stone gallery is the dragon, Odahviing. Arguably Dragonsreach’s most popular guest, the red dragon pores over a haunch of meat, largely observing the goings on but occasionally deigning to speak to the mortals that might be brave enough to address him. 

On the final day of Evening Star, at sunset, the king and his guests gather in the Great Porch to watch as the last of the light fades over the hills and valleys beyond. Odahviing perches on the lip of the Porch, and, at a nod from King Edric, breathes a gout of flame. The impending night flows around this brief flare, as it catches in an enormous brazier and solidifies itself into an island of light. Here, and all over the city, the gathered masses close their eyes and think of those they have lost in the year past. Priests of Arkay speak rites of remembrance as people place offerings into the flames: food, letters, crafted trinkets.  
Assembled around the flaring Skyforge, the Companions observe as their Harbinger, Evander Ferius, places a great log of pine carved in the shape of Ysgramor’s ship on the fire, while Aela the Huntress reads from the company’s Roll of Honour.  
Before the assembled guests of Dragonsreach, King Edric steps forward and places in the fire a wooden figurine, carved in the likeness of a stooped old man. As cinders fly up into the cold night air, he speaks a name to the vast darkness: Esbern.  
When the remembrance ceremonies are completed, the assemblies return to their hearths and tables and firepits to share food and drink in further honour of their departed. In Dragonsreach, the king leads his guests back to the hall, where the night is wiled away in feast and song.  
At midnight, the revellers return to their remembrance fires and sing aloud to welcome the new year. 

Few rise with the dawn on the 1st of Morning Star.  
At the Bannered Mare, Ysolda serves fried eggs and bread to her guests as they drift delicately into the inn’s common room, which is still littered with the remnants of last night’s revelry.  
In the hall of Dragonsreach, the king shares fresh bread and honey with his family and closest friends, the Harbinger Evander, Arch-Mage Cassarah Torinus, and Blades Grandmaster Delphine.  
Most spend the day in similar friendly gatherings, perusing the market stalls, drinking around hearthfires, or playing in the snowy fields outside the city.  
At night, the parties resume as though they never ended, but now without the tempering sombre note brought on by the remembrance ceremonies. Mead flows like water through the streets of Whiterun, warriors tussle in contests of strength and endurance, and mages entrance and delight onlookers with conjured shapes made of light. This merrymaking continues long into the night, with many staying up to see the first light of morning.

Such is winter in Skyrim.


End file.
